Parting Shot: Paper Trails

“Cartonlandia” by Ana Serrano

These masterpieces put the paper airplanes you made in class to shame. The Scion Installation L.A. Gallery in Culver City, Calif., gathered 10 international artists this spring for “Papershapers,” an exhibition of original pieces that are cut, torn, folded and sewn from paper. Los Angeles artist Ana Serrano’s 5-foot-high “Cartonlandia” was one of the showstoppers. Serrano worked on the piece for four months, first constructing a wooden frame and then building the colorful shantytown from the ground up. Sunday walks around her neighborhood were spent snapping photographs of doors, windows, people and mailboxes to incorporate into the detailed settlement. Cardboard, colored paper and food packaging became the walls and roofs of each building. Inspired by similar towns she visited in Mexico, the piece is “a look at class and economy, but without the serious overtones these topics tend to have,” says Serrano.